The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant General Waidi Shuaibu arrived in Borno State following President Bola Tinubu’s directive for the immediate rescue of abductees and intensified military operations against insurgents in the region.
Shuaibu reached the headquarters of the Joint Task Force, Operation Hadin Kai, at Maimalari Cantonment at about 11 a.m. on October 17.
His visit to Borno State, the historic center of the Islamist insurgency, comes days after President Bola Tinubu ordered security agencies to step up operations to recover all abducted persons.
The directive, disclosed by Minister of Defence Christopher Musa on October 15 after a security meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, instructs military and intelligence chiefs to dismantle terrorist and bandit camps nationwide.
“The directive from the President is: all of us must go all out to fish out and rescue all those that have been abducted, kidnapped, wherever they are,” Musa said.
“There shouldn’t be any camp of any terrorists or bandits anywhere in Nigeria,” he said.
According to the Minister, Tinubu also directed service chiefs and other security-agency heads to safeguard the elections scheduled for January, ordering them to protect voters and maintain a secure environment ahead of the elections..
For the military, General Shuaibu’s visit underscores the operational stakes: the army must translate a presidential directive into visible progress in rescuing captives, clearing militant strongholds, and restoring confidence in a region that has borne the brunt of the nation’s security crisis.
